


Two Demons Walk Into A Bar

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU, Gen, Short, Silly, They're both demons AU, but it's not sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 14:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5294144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The demon that does not have yellow eyes punches someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Demons Walk Into A Bar

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/127104322955/lets-try-this-again-take-2-let-me-know-if

If things had gone  
differently…  


Crowley was a demon of Temptation.  Azraf was a demon of Wrath. 

They got along pretty well, considering their differences.  For example, Crowley was—well, himself, while Azraf was a demon who took his job Very Seriously.

The problem was Azraf wasn’t entirely sure what his job _was._  The title “Demon of Wrath” was rather uninformative as to what he was actually supposed to be doing, and as a supernatural creature with an eye for detail, the ambiguity bothered him.  Am I supposed to be a _source_ of wrath, he would have asked if questioning his superiors would not have earned him eternal torment, or am I supposed to provoke wrathful behavior in humans?  The two goals sometimes required very different strategies.

Mostly Azraf just ended up punching people.  It usually seemed to accomplished both.

He had been given the same instructions as the Serpent on the first day of the world: Get up there and make some trouble.  And, as a demon who took his job Very Seriously, Azraf’s first order of business on Earth was to walk up to the Garden and punch the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, a hapless angel named Gadreel. 

It was an epic clash,* and while the two of them were busy, Crowley took the opportunity to slip inside and perform his own, more subtle brand of making trouble.

* * *

*Between the two of them, they invented most of the curse words that are still used today.

* * *

Their relationship did not always progress smoothly. They ended up getting in each other’s way more than anything, and their attempts to one-up each other usually ended with both of them walking away unsuccessful.  Early on, Crowley had been attempting to steal a book from the Library of Alexandria but, due to an accident** resulting from meeting Azraf there,*** ended up burning it down instead.  It seemed to quite upset Azraf, and Crowley was torn between being in favor of anything that upset his competitor on the principle of the thing, and trying to be civil and avoid low blows.

* * *

**There was a candle involved.  It had seemed wackier and more light-hearted at the time.

***Azraf had been there for something similar, although his plan had also involved punching.  

* * *

They eventually came to an Arrangement of sorts in which they helped each other instead of competing, and this resulted in a net decrease in the total amount they accomplished, like an inverted synergistic effect, which suited both of them just fine.  They also vouched for each other on falsified reports to Down Below, because demons generally do not give each other credit for bad deeds unless they absolutely have to, and even then only grudgingly, so a demon corroborating another demon’s story was usually enough proof that no one questioned it.  


Since they both now appeared to be doing more work while actually doing less, it meant they had more time for themselves. Crowley took the opportunity to explore some human hobbies, such as gardening, and Azraf started collecting books and occasionally punching people because he thought they deserved it rather than because it was his job.

The next big item on his Evil to-do list was to punch a nun. He had never worked up the courage to punch anyone associated with the clergy, mostly because he was afraid of their crosses and holy water and good habits, but it was on his to-do list, and by Satan if something was on his to-do list, it meant he was jolly well going to do it.****

* * *

****This was not really true, but one could not say it was false either, because while he had not accomplished many of the things on his Evil to-do list, he also still had the opportunity to do them, and thus no one could say he had _failed_ to do something even if it had been on his list since the beginning of time. 

* * *

Crowley had actually had some very grandiose plans for the British M25 motorway, but Azraf had messed them up when the two had tried to cooperate on the plan.  Crowley had been in the middle of successfully smooth-talking a highway engineer into rearranging the blueprints, when Azraf had come up and punched the man, who was significantly less inclined to persuasion after that.  Ultimately he had to settle for spray-painting the dread sigil Odegra from the Black Priesthood of Mu onto one of the support pillars for the M25.  It just wasn’t the same. 

When Crowley confronted him about what he had done, Azraf had punched him.

“Your job is to invoke wrath on _humans,_ not me!” said Crowley, clutching a bloody nose.

“I didn’t do that because it was my job,” said Azraf primly. “That was personal.”

Azraf eventually opened a bookshop, and his habit of glowering at customers and cracking his knuckles meant none of them really felt safe enough in the shop to stay long enough to buy something.


End file.
